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Author Q&As

Architectural historian Victoria Newhouse talks about some of the remarkable music performance spaces that appear in the pages of her newest book,Site and Sound: The Architecture and Acoustics of New Opera Houses and Concert Halls (The Monacelli Press, April 2012).

Steven Heller talks about 100 graphic design ideas, some of the all-time great graphic designers, and more in his newest book, written with Véronique Vienne, 100 Ideas That Changed Graphic Design (April 2012, Laurence King Publishing).

Couturier Ralph Rucci discusses his book, Autobiography of a Fashion Designer: Ralph Rucci, published in December 2011 by Bauer and Dean and inspired by artist Sol LeWitt’s autobiography told through objects.

Graphic designer Paula Scher talks about her recent book, Maps (Princeton Architectural Press, October 2011), which was named a Designers & Books Notable Book of 2011, how she got interested in cartography, and how she approached the book’s design.

Graphic designer Michael Bierut takes a look at his Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design on the occasion of its release in paperback and discusses typefaces, the “First Things First” manifesto, and what he's thinking of writing next.

Architect and Yale University School of Architecture professor Mark Foster Gage discusses his book on contemporary architecture and beauty and examines what designers can do to ensure that we “dine in the restaurant of architecture.”

Kenneth Frampton—Ware Professor of Architecture at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), where he has taught since 1972—talks about Five North American Architects: An Anthology, released in February 2012 by Lars Müller and GSAPP.

John van de Water, a partner in the Dutch firm NEXT Architects, discusses what went into creating his book, You Can’t Change China, China Changes You, an account of five years spent working as a Western architect in China (010 Publishers, February 2012).

Architect and architecture blogger John Hill, of Archidose, discusses his book Guide to Contemporary New York City Architecture, published in December 2011 by W. W. Norton, and how he went from “architourist” to author. The book was named a Designers & Books Notable Book of 2011.

Preservation architect Jeffrey M. Chusid talks about his book Saving Wright: The Freeman House and the Preservation of Meaning, Materials, and Modernity (W. W. Norton, December 2011), which chronicles the efforts to preserve the Freeman House—an experimental house in the Hollywood Hills designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1924—and the “the symphonic blast of excitement” the author experienced actually living in the house.

In the first in a series of Author Q&As, Designers & Books asks graphic designers Ivan Chermayeff, Tom Geismar, and Sagi Haviv to talk about their new book, Identify (Print Publishing, October 2011), named a Notable Book of 2011 by Designers & Books.

Interviews

Architect Jeanne Gang talks to architecture critic Paul Goldberger about books and authors from Benjamin Franklin to Eileen Gray as well as how her idea of “turning off reality and letting yourself imagine” applies both to the design development process of a building and the interior monologue that goes on when you are reading a book.

Graphic designer Bob Gill talks to Designers & Books about his favorite books, the fact that he is not an avid reader, and comments about the many books he’s written, including his latest—Bob Gill, so far.

Indefatigable designer, writer, and reader Todd Oldham talks to design editor Wendy Goodman of New York magazine in an interview for Designers & Books—about what (and how) he reads and writes. Authors Dorothy Parker and Amy and David Sedaris, artists Cindy Sherman and Tim Hawkinson, film director Sidney Lumet, and designers Roberto Burle Marx, Tony Duquette, Charley Harper, and Alexander Girard are all part of the mix.

Interior designer Jeffrey Bilhuber sits down with Designers & Books for a conversation that ranges from an unusual fiction choice on the book list he sent us to why he is getting his preschool son a subscription to National Geographic magazine to what his own library looks like and the thinking behind his latest book, The Way Home.

Jessica Helfand is a graphic designer, educator, writer, and an avid reader. In this interview with Designers & Books she talks about books as constant companions in her life—and why the titles on the book list she submitted are not about design.

During the academic year celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Dean Mohsen Mostafavi met with critic and author Nicolai Ouroussoff to talk about the books on Dean Mostafavi’s Designers & Books list—books that have particular resonance for him not only because of their intellectual content but also through their very personal connection to him.

Susan S. Szenasy talks about books that have, or should have, influenced our culture and the design community from her perspective as editor in chief of Metropolis, which celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2011.